The Contortionists

2003-2013

Inspired by the bodily flexibility of circus contortionists, this series depicts figures whose bodily modifications register psychological, emotional, and social conditions not normally visible within immediate physical reality. In these images narratives that have been intentionally unrecorded become manifested physically as aberrations or visual ticks. The vulnerability and fragility of being an adolescent is made visible as long, hollow unbalanced limbs in Bird Girl. An overpowering desire to wound is exposed in blood red talons frozen in the moment just before in Lion Lady. The bodies in this series are stretched and twisted, fused and amputated by the desire, disappointment, obsession, and awkwardness that consume them. Through these exaggerations, these images offer a window onto states of being that lurk invisibly within conventional snapshot photography.